100 Ways Sheppard died
by Pajus
Summary: The title pretty much sums it up
1. McKay Is Not a Hypochondriac

**McKay is not a hypochondriac... (Conversion)**

_From the first strike comes the second, then a parry – a protection from the opponent's counterattack – again, again, again,_ Teyla thought to herself during her sparring session with Colonel Sheppard. Usually, she only got to say _again_ once before John was lying in pain on the floor. Not this time – John was able to defend himself against all the tried and true methods she used to send him to the floor.

Finally, John dropped one of his sticks and challenged the Athosian once more. Even with the advantage, Teyla was still unable to defeat him. She was in the middle of trying to invent a new strategy for fighting him when John suddenly grabbed her, pressed her against the wall, and planted a passionate kiss on her lips. Before Teyla knew it, John was licking the inside of her mouth with his hot wet tongue. A moment later, John got himself partially under control and pulled away from the kiss.

"That was different," John said, still not believing what he had just done.

"John? I think we should –" Teyla managed to get out of herself after partially recovering from the surprise, only to see Sheppard walking away.

* * *

On the way to his quarters, John began feeling his tongue itching slightly. The itch had grown gradually, slowly changing into a burning sensation. John thought it was his conscience, trying to make him feel guilty for something that could be called a sexual assault, but that changed as soon as he entered his quarters. In that moment, he began to feel pounding pain in his swelling tongue.

John didn't hesitate and tapped his radio to call Carson, but his tongue had already grown too big, taking John's ability to articulate. He tried to tell Carson what was going on with him, but only unintelligible noises were coming out.

"_Stay where you are, Colonel, I'm taking a team to where you are."_ John could hear the doctor, but the intense pain coming from his tongue was dumbing him down, rendering him unable to understand what the Scot just said.

A few seconds later, a new problem appeared – one that made John forget about the pain. The swelling reached as far as the rear part of his tongue. Within moments, the swelling tongue completely blocked John's breathing paths.

John grabbed himself by the throat in a desperate effort to relieve his blocked trachea, but to no avail. His tongue has swollen to a size that didn't let a single molecule of air through.

John tried to breathe as much as he could, but he was slowly losing the battle for his life. His muscles were slowly losing strength, making him sink to his knees and then fall down on the floor. John ceased his attempts for a few seconds and gathered the last bit of his resolve. Then he tried to breathe again, but his effort was futile.

* * *

Carson arrived only three minutes after John called him and found the officer lying on the floor without movement. The doctor quickly checked John's pulse and breathing, but couldn't find any signs of life.

The moment Carson opened John's mouth to give him some air, his eyes widened with horror. "Give me some epinephrine! Now!" he yelled at the nurse that was with him and stabbed the needle into John's body the moment the nurse prepared it.

"Scalpel!" Carson kept his eyes on the Colonel and began moving his hands as soon as he felt the cold steel of the instrument on the palm of his hand. It took only moments for Carson to cut John's trachea open and give him some air through there. Another nurse was standing two feet away with a breathing aide that was applied the moment Carson finished the little operation.

"Defibrillator!" The nurses practiced the preparation of the life-saving instruments for months and it was clearly visible in the quickness of their actions. All Carson needed was to say a single word and their agile hands sprang into life. Within seconds, the two metallic pads were covered with conductive gel. "Charge!" The nurse handed the pads into Carson's waiting hands and pressed a few buttons on the machine that reacted by emitting a high-pitched noise. "Clear!" Everyone, who had their hands on the unconscious body retreated to a safe distance while Carson placed the pads on the body's chest.

"Fire!" Carson pressed the red buttons on the pads, connecting the electric circuit between the defibrillator's capacitors and John's body. The effect was almost instant – John's body jumped up and convulsed violently as its muscles reacted to the electric spike affecting them. Carson checked again, but the Colonel's body still showed no signs of life.

Carson let one of the nurses to give John a new breath of fresh air before making another attempt at starting his heart. "Again! Charge!" The defibrillator squeaked once more, indicating that its capacitors are being charged. "Fire!" John's body jumped up again, but there was still no change.

Five minutes of attempts later, Carson took the blanket from John's bed and covered his face with it. His next action was to tap his radio and say "Doctor Weir, we have a problem."

* * *

"The only thing we could find on his tongue was a small amount of saliva that was definitely not his. We tried testing it, and the results came back positive for Teyla." All the heads in the conference room turned towards the shocked Athosian as Dr. Biro reported what she had found during the autopsy. "We tried mixing the blood we took from Teyla and Colonel Sheppard as a DNA sample. It took a few moments for the samples to interact, but when they did, it was extremely violent. There is no doubt that the saliva was what caused Colonel Sheppard to suffer an extreme case of anaphylaxis that killed him."

"Are you saying he was allergic against her?" Rodney asked unbelievingly.

"Yes. And it's not just him. We have observed a similar reaction with everyone, who has the ATA gene. My theory is that it has something to do with the Wraith gene Teyla has," the pathologist added.

"But how could Teyla's saliva get on the Colonel's tongue?" Dr. Weir asked immediately.

"He kissed me." Teyla spoke up for the first time since the meeting began. The phrase _love kills_ got a whole new and more frightening meaning to those in the room.

* * *

AN: Story was challenged by Anuna and betaed by Reiko. Thanks to the both of them


	2. He's Just an Idiot

**... He's Just an Idiot (The Last Man)**

"_Good luck, John_." The hologram created by Rodney McKay used the city's internal sensors to take a last look at Colonel Sheppard before the stasis pod surrounded his body with what looked like ice. But it was actually a quantum probability field that decreased the interaction probability of the particles inside and slowed them down to a speed near zero values.

After making sure Sheppard was comfortable in the pod, the hologram deactivated itself to save power. He would activate again after the city's sensors detected suitable conditions for the appearance of the desired solar flare. This was how his creator planned things to happen. This was what the hologram was programmed to believe. Little did he know how stupid his creator had been.

_92 years later_

The Rodney hologram used the city's sensors once more to verify what they told him just a few seconds before, but what they told him was basically the same. Nothing made sense in the reality he had found himself in. The position of stars he got indicated it was midday just an hour ago, but the ambient light sensors told him that it was night. Furthermore, the data he got about the planet's orbit around the local star didn't make any sense. Finally, he decided to look into the Ancient database for information about the solar system.

"Okay, okay - here is the system, let's see what we have here – age: 200 million years. Hey!!" On that moment, the hologram began suspecting something _very_ nasty – 200 million years was _way_ too little for a star – but he still kept reading. "_Primary color in visible spectrum has been modified from 595 to 472 nanometers _… What the hell?" Despite everything, the hologram kept reading the Ancient records. "_Sole planet created artificially by collapsing parts of the local asteroid field into a coherent structure with subsequent environmental manipulation and introduction of animals and plants _- why would they do that?" Rodney asked himself until he stumbled upon the next part of the records. "_Planet served two purposes: One, easier mining of the asteroid belt's extensive mineral deposits, and two, testing ground for various technologies like 'gravity manipulation', 'environmental manipulation' and 'fusion manipulation'. Tests showed that manipulated environments are capable of self-maintenance. Introduced forms of life have begun to adapt themselves to the environmental specifications of the planet immediately after introduction. Those with short lifespans have displayed complete adaptation within 200 generations_. Okay, that explains it, but why would the Ancients leave? _Fifteen years after commencing mining operations, the Wraith have discovered and destroyed the Ancients' presence here._ Good, but that's still not what I'm looking for."

With nothing left to lose, the hologram skipped to the last record involving this solar system. "_Be advised that the asteroid belt was on the outer edge of what we call a 'useful range' of the solar system. Creating a viable environment required the use of fusion modification technology on the local star. After all mining operations and biological experiments are concluded, the star should be returned to its original state. Otherwise, it will collapse into a black hole in exactly 58276 years_." After discovering this piece of information, the hologram took the date of this record and compared it to the current date. It was exactly 58276 years and 51 days. His creator obviously didn't read the entire story about the local star.

The only thing that he could do now was to lock the stasis pod to make sure Sheppard would never wake up – using the Stargate with a collapsing star around would definitely kill everything that enters its event horizon. That was the last thing the hologram did while in existence. History will not be changed – not this time.

* * *

AN: Thanks once more to Reiko for her beta. More Sheppard deaths are on the way. If anyone has a challenge and is willing to share, I'll be grateful for everything you can give me.

The numbers in this story are not accurate - there is no scientific base for a stellar lifecycle yet. I had to use an empiric base. I can assure you that in light of the things presented in 'The Last Man', this is one of two solutions that make sense. (The other is that McKay is a total idiot, who doesn't know the first thing about how stars work)


	3. You're Just Pissing Me Off

**You're Just Pissing Me Off (The Siege 2)**

* * *

"Major, dial the Alpha site," Colonel Everett repeated his order, only to be met by Sheppard's silence and inaction that made him think about the 'Chair Force', the 'Zoomies', the 'Wing Wipers', and other, less pleasant nicknames the Marines called the Air Force people. He came to the conclusion that a different approach was necessary to ensure obedience among the military personnel that was commanded by this poor excuse for an officer for the better part of a year.

"Doctor Weir, will you give us a minute?" Everett finally asked, still looking into Sheppard's eyes without so much as batting an eyelash.

Elizabeth didn't want to leave John in one room with a man looking at him like this, but she had no choice except to leave the two officers alone to what would probably be a heated argument. Leaving the room, she headed for Rodney and Radek, who looked like they were arguing about something.

Once Elizabeth left the room, Everett looked over at Captain Ragnar, who, nodding in understanding, gathered everyone else in the room and left, closing the door and leaving his commanding officer alone with Sheppard.

"Major, I am ordering you one last time: Dial the Alpha site," Everett spoke once more, his voice calm, his eyes determined.

"With all due respect, Colonel, I am refusing your order until you explain your plans for defending this city to Doctor Weir!" Sheppard retorted, his voice showing a bit of rage at the stubbornness of his new commander.

The next second happened both too fast and too slow for both of them. Everett took his nine-millimeter pistol from the holster, aimed it at Sheppard's head and squeezed the trigger before the Major could react.

John's last thought was that _Einstein was right_: time is relative to the observer. As he looked down the barrel of Everett's pistol, time slowed down and his whole life flashed by in fast forward. Then came the muzzle flash ejecting the small copper-coated piece of lead into the space between the two men with a thundering noise.

In a mere fraction of a second, the projectile hit John in the middle of the forehead, cracking his skull open before making its way into the depths of the man's head. The soft tissue didn't offer much resistance to the dense projectile that was mincing the brain matter it came across. A blink of an eye later, the bullet reached the skull plate on the back of John's head. His skull cracked open, causing blood and brain to explode onto the wall behind Sheppard, whose body was already falling to the floor like a puppet with cut lines.

Everett watched the Major's body falling backwards with mocking satisfaction in his mind. At last, he had revenge for the death of his best friend. Sheppard's body hit the floor with a soft thud-like noise. The Colonel looked at it one last time before the door opened.

Rodney was just explaining to Elizabeth why he should be in the meeting when the thundering sound of a pistol shot echoed through the gate room and the adjacent corridors. Quickly forgetting everything, she ran to the conference room, wondering what had happened inside. Within moments, the door opened to reveal the horrible sight. Everett was standing over Sheppard's corpse with a light grin in his face.

Elizabeth knelt down beside the dead body of her friend and took his head into her hands. Somewhere away, Everett was giving his orders: "Lieutenant Ford, dial the Alpha site! Recall all military personnel! Also, all civilians who would like to help defending this city as damage control teams are welcome to do so! Jennings, Mendez, clean this mess!" The Marines acknowledged their respective orders and moved to obey.

Elizabeth looked at her hands that were drenched in blood from Sheppard's head when the Marines took the body away to the morgue. In the course of her duties as a UN negotiator, she had already seen many dictators who had people executed. But to see her friend being executed for not obeying the will of his new commanding officer gave her a new reason to fight against the ultimate penalty everywhere.

* * *

AN: Once again, a big Thank you to Reiko for betaing this for me.


	4. Condoms are indeed useful

**Condoms are indeed useful (The Tower)**

"Our drone racks are now twenty percent full. It should be enough to defend against up to five hives, but the problem is, once again, power. A lone Zed PM can't juice up that many drones and the shield at the same time, so we'll have to attach a group of mark-two naquadah generators into the power grid," Rodney delivered his report about the newly acquired defenses with pride. He always made it look like he had done all good things all by himself. Nobody in the conference room was listening to him. John, Elizabeth, Ronon and Teyla were only hoping the report will be over before they die of boredom.

Finally, after ten more minutes, Rodney decided to end their torment and finish his report. Everyone stood up and stretched their limbs a little. That was when the slight ache in John's groin appeared again. He had gotten used to walking with it painlessly, but he completely forgot about it in the meeting. With nothing else on his mind right now, John had decided to hit the gym to try and shake it off, as he thought it was from the wave of cold weather that hit Atlantis recently. Little did he know how wrong he had been.

* * *

One week later, the ache still wouldn't go away. It got actually worse. At first, it got more intense - then it began to spread. John finally let go of his typical soldier machismo and decided to visit Carson in the infirmary.

After five minutes in the Ancient scanner, Carson finally gave John the basic diagnosis. "There is definitely something in ye that is not supposed to be there, lad. I'll need to run more tests to identify it and to estimate what it actually does. It will take only about an hour." John had resigned himself into the care of the doctor, who began using his devices on him.

Fifty minutes later, Carson packed his equipment and began asking questions. "How long have ye been having these aches?"

"About a week."

"When was the last time ye had sexual intercourse?"

"_WHAT_?" John slowly began to understand where Carson was headed and he didn't like the thought one single bit.

"The only thing that makes sense here is that ye caught an STD, son," Carson replied in a silent voice, not wanting to alert anyone about the condition of Atlantis' Kirk.

"Okay, I get it. It was..." John had to think hard for a while before he could give an answer. "...I think it was about a month ago with that - I think she was an important person on that planet." John gave Carson a scared look. He could_ always _remember the women he had slept with, but now, he seemed unable to recall his memories right away. "Doc... What's going on with me?" John had finally asked the question he was afraid to ask.

"The bacterium that is probably causing this has already spread through yer body, son. Naturally, your groin still has the biggest concentration, but smaller numbers of it can be detected everywhere. It is attacking all yer organs, but the brain seems to be more sensitive towards its influence," Carson answered in a grieving voice.

"What are you going to do?"

"With your permission, I'd like to ask Ronon and Teyla if they know anything about the disease. I'd also like a sample of yer blood for testing. I'd also need a sample from the girl on the planet. Don't worry - I have a good idea who she was," Carson explained with a slight grin and stabbed a syringe into John's wrist to take a bit of his blood.

* * *

Elizabeth had no problems allowing a team to M5S-422 after Carson explained why it was needed. He, Ronon and Teyla were sent to the village, where several members of the former royal family lived – except now, they were working with the people they oppressed. Carson didn't feel comfortable discussing it in Atlantis, but once they went through the gate, he asked the Pegasus natives. "Have you ever seen a disease that would cause aches in the groin and memory loss?"

"I know about several. All of them are transmitted when two share one bed," Teyla answered and thought a little. "Is that why we are here?"

"Actually... yes" Carson said hesitantly. Neither Teyla, nor Ronon said anything, but both of them thought about the fact that all that flirting and womanizing would one day come back and bite their teammate hard. Now the day had come. "We have to find the girl he had slept with and test her."

And so they have. During the last month, Mara had changed so much that they could barely recognize her. Her hair and skin were dirty, her clothes were ragged in several places and she looked like she didn't sleep much. The odd thing was that she didn't display any signs of the disease - but Carson _did_ find the bacteria when he tested her blood for it.

After Carson delivered his diagnosis, both Teyla and Ronon threw him incredulous and scared looks. A moment later, Teyla decided to speak the terrible news. "There are many diseases that cause loss of memory and aches in the groin, but only one of them has no effect on women. It is called _Sevarra_. There is no cure for it that I would know about. You were saying that Colonel Sheppard experienced these aches for seven days before he sought you out?"

"Yes, lass," Carson answered with uncertainty in his voice. The words 'no cure' usually meant big trouble.

Teyla sighed a little before delivering the last bit of her knowledge about what had befallen her friend. "Then unless we find a cure, he will die within the next five days."

* * *

"Oh my god!" Elizabeth exclaimed after the team delivered their report about their findings.

"It seems the bacterium reacts to its environment. Estrogen calms it down, but testosterone makes it highly aggressive. That's why women are not affected by it. The bacteria are merely surviving in their bodies. Once it gets into a man, it begins to reproduce and attack everything it gets to."

"What are you going to do, Carson?" Elizabeth asked after a moment of silence.

"I am going to use large doses of aggressive antibiotics on the most affected areas and smaller doses in his IV fluids. If that doesn't work, I'll try to inject him with estrogen and testosterone inhibitors. And if that doesn't work, I'll have to remove the source of testosterone in his body."

"Best case scenario?" Elizabeth tried to ask matter-of-factly, but this was her close friend they were talking about.

"We will get the disease out of him before it does any real damage."

Then, Elizabeth asked the question she was afraid to ask. "Worst case scenario?"

Carson didn't answer. He just turned his head to Teyla, who delivered an answer. "He will lose all his memories and faculties before the end -" Teyla's choice of words felt both sensitive and cruel to those in the room, "- in five, maybe six days."

"Alright. Keep me posted." Elizabeth accepted the news and adjourned the meeting.

* * *

The treatment Carson had proposed turned John's body into one big battlefield. Carson tried his best to cure the soldier, but the disease had already progressed too far – the week when John discarded his condition as a mere chill ache was what made the difference. The antibiotics merely slowed Sevarra down, but were doing so much damage to the soldier's body that after two days, Carson was forced to abandon this plan.

The first backup plan worked a little better, but John's body had only limited natural sources of estrogen and the Sevarra bacterium seemed to support his testicles – as if it was trying to create more fuel for itself. The day Carson switched plans, John suddenly lost all his memories and became aggressive, wounding two medics before a stunner blast from Corporal Perkins stopped him. After this incident, John had been permanently restrained and sedated.

Four days after returning from M5S-422, Carson finally decided to perform the most radical of his three plans: castrating Sheppard and injecting him with a huge dose of estrogen afterwards. It seemed to work and calm down the Sevarra bacterium, but it still wasn't good enough. Six days after diagnosing John with Sevarra, Carson had finally admitted that he had lost the battle for his life. In the five weeks since infection, the Sevarra bacterium reproduced – there were so many in John's body that they were killing him even in their dormant state.

Lt. Col. John Sheppard, USAF, had died nine days after first visiting Carson.

After two months of research, Carson found out that John would have died no matter what he could try. His experiments have showed that it is already too late when Sevarra shows its symptoms. As a result of this discovery, all off-world personnel had been issued condoms as standard field equipment – it was experimentally proved that they can prevent the Sevarra bacterium from reaching the man's body.

* * *

AN: Once again a big thanks to Reiko for betaing this for me. Another thanks goes to Fionnait for her scientific help


End file.
